


When You Came Home

by Phia



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Dreams, Gen, His Last Vow Spoilers, John is Missing, Nightmares, POV Sherlock Holmes, Post-Season/Series 03, Pregnant Mary, Reichenbach-Related
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-04
Updated: 2014-09-04
Packaged: 2018-02-16 04:27:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2255853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phia/pseuds/Phia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“That’s not Lady Smallwood.” The voice is husky. The head is silvery blonde. It’s John’s head and it’s John’s voice and it’s John small figure hunched over the carpeted floor.</p><p>John's gone missing for a few days, leaving Sherlock to deal with a confused Mycroft, an angry Mary, and his own nightmares.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When You Came Home

John has been gone for three days and both Mary and Sherlock are worried.

Mary, to the eye, more than Sherlock. She keeps stroking one hand over her belly as if something bad is going to happen to Alexandra inside just because John is not drinking his tea or calling Sherlock.

Sherlock tosses his mobile in the air and catches it again as Mary paces across their clean kitchen floor. John had wiped it before he left. He was always a stress cleaner. Sherlock frowns at this new revelation and stares down at the table he is seated at, mobile safely in hand.

“Why would John leave?” She twirls around to face him in her evergreen dress and glares at Sherlock. “Did you boys have a case on?”

Sherlock shakes his head. “No. We haven’t had one in a while.” He shifts in the chair and the wood creaks. “I wanted him to stay here just in case of anything with the baby.”

It is probably the wrong thing to say, because Mary’s cold stare at him is reminiscent of the one she used before she shot him in the chest. Sherlock lightly slides a hand on the exact spot without noticing the action as he remembers the event silently. Mary continues to walk back and forth, her socked feet moving across the kitchen floor.

“I’ve tried everything I could, Mary. Mycroft hasn’t seen him, and I haven’t gotten any information. We’ve all tried.” He stands. “I’m going home.”

Mary scrunches up her face and draws her head back, putting her hands on her hips. “That’s it? I’m seven months pregnant, John is missing, and now you’re leaving me too?!”

Sherlock laughs as he leaves the tiny flat. He lets the door slam against the wall on his way out, ignoring Mary’s angry cry.

 

* * *

 

“Have you found anything?” Sherlock can almost hear Mycroft shake his head on the other end of the line.

“No information whatsoever. We don’t believe Dr. Watson is in danger, but he may very well be. I assure you we are doing the best we can.” Mycroft’s tone is strong and assured, the same one he used many years ago when he told Sherlock the way to climb down from that tree in their backyard so he wouldn’t hurt himself.

“I believe you.”

Mycroft audibly recoils. “Yes, well, we - we will get back to you with any reports.”

Sherlock thinks about thanking him, but then he hangs up.

 

* * *

 

He dreams about smelling the Claire de Lune again. He can almost feel it invade and fill his nose. Besides the guard and Janine lying together side by side on the office floor, no one is with him. No one is there with him to tell him Mary wears it.

He passes corridors and mirrors and fake plants until he swiftly barges into the room where the assassin has her back to him. Of course it’s _her_ back, because Sherlock knows how this is going to go.

“Lady Smallwood,” the dream Sherlock says. Because that is what Sherlock said all those months ago.

“That’s not Lady Smallwood.” The voice is husky. The head is silvery blonde. It’s John’s head and it’s John’s voice and it’s John small figure hunched over the carpeted floor.

Dream Sherlock furrows his brow. If Sherlock was conscious, he would show outward signs of his own confusion, too, because John isn’t supposed to be here. It’s supposed to be Magnussen, not Watson, crouched over, hands over his head, ready to do whatever the assassin wants him to do.

She turns around. Dream Sherlock does what real Sherlock did. Show surprise, the cockiness, the sureness that Dream Mary wouldn’t shoot him. Wouldn’t dare hurt Sherlock like that. Wouldn’t dare to hurt her own husband, as well as Sherlock’s family, and countless fans who if they ever found out would be rendered speechless and presumably angry, but anyway, the fans never mattered in the first place; who matters is Sherlock’s biggest supporter, blonde and beautiful and vibrating with fear on that wretched floor, who matters is the person who messed up his sock index and hid the cigarettes so it took him longer to find them, who matters is the exact person that Mary kisses before turning off the light each night, something that Sherlock, ever since finding out that he wishes to do the same thing, wishes he could do every evening.

But he can’t, all of the Sherlocks, in all of the universes - they can’t grab John’s hand, and they can’t knock the gun out of Mary’s. She shoots him, but there is no mind palace sequence. All he can feel is himself falling.

And suddenly, Dream Sherlock is falling through the many floors of Magnussen’s office building and landing on a black rooftop, flat on his back.

The speech that Sherlock tries not to recount too many times, with John’s words tinged with disbelief and horror, and the tears are trailing down his face, but he can’t wipe them away, he can only clutch the mobile tighter and hope that somehow, he can climb down.

John reaches his hand out. Sherlock does too. He is afraid. He knows this won’t be a short break. Discounting anything he might say, he knows that this is going to be a horrible, bloody nightmare.

He sees one of the assistants grope around for the fake blood packet in his pocket.

John yells. Sherlock falls.

This happens far too often, in every single universe, at every single time.

Sherlock wakes himself up, because there is no end.

 

* * *

 

He is walking back from the store on the corner with a bag of bread and jam pulled close to his chest when he sees John standing on the landing, his arms crossed. John’s hair is wet, and he is in his pajamas. He must have just showered. It doesn’t make much sense, seeing as Baker Street isn’t John’s home anymore, but Sherlock is just happy to see him. They make their way into the flat, John closing the door behind them as Sherlock sets the bag down on the kitchen table.

He turns. John smiles. He breaks.

“John, Mary is extremely worried. That isn’t good for Alexandra. We named her while you were gone, for four days, John, for four days! We were worried.” There’s no reason to hide anything now, he guesses, not from your flatmate of so many years who has seen you high, naked, and everything in between. “ _I_ was worried.”

John smiles again, looks up at Sherlock through his lashes. “I needed some time alone, to make my own decision.” The army doctor seems completely unperturbed. It’s starting to eat at Sherlock, the visible indifference toward anything that may happen, any of the anger and worry that both Sherlock and Mary were feeling.

“How did you bypass Mycroft’s security?”

John shrugs, his plaid robe stretching across his muscled body. “I remembered some tips from you. Apparently, they worked. Very well, I guess.” He grins, something so rare and beautifully unearthed. “Let’s sit and talk about it.”

They sit in their regular chairs, but nothing at all is regular.

“I guess I owe you an explanation.” John leans back into his chair, comfortable and drowsy. Sherlock can empathize. “Mary doesn’t love me; she just wants me as a coverup. I don’t love her either. I owe no responsibility towards her. That child inside of Mary isn’t mine.”

“I know.”

“So why didn’t you tell me?” John sneers.

“I wanted you to be happy. You were happy before that case with Magnussen. You were okay. Everything was okay.” Sherlock looks down at his nails, then back up at his best friend.

“Was I happy, Sherlock?” John tilts his head and pastes a smile on his face patronizingly. “Was I?”

Sherlock thinks for a second about his comments on John’s penchant for danger. “No.”

John nods briskly. “If this relationship is going to work, we need to be completely honest with each other. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Sherlock says immediately, because he does understand. Then he blinks a few times. “Wait - a relationship?”

“My bags are in your room. There’s only a few in the corner, don’t worry. I already texted Mary. She’s upset but not too upset. She’s not even in London right now.” John shrugs. Sherlock folds his hands together in thought. Why didn’t he think to check on Mary?

“Bless. . . Alexandra, bless Mary, but they aren’t mine.” He looks at Sherlock and smirks. “You, on the other hand. . . “

At John’s suggestive tone, Sherlock clasps his hands in his lap and openly stares.

John rises from his worn chair. “I’ll be upstairs if you need me.”

Sherlock sits there as John walks away. He tries to think but he can’t find the power to do so. He sighs with frustration at himself before following John into their bedroom. Thinking and talking will come later, he’s sure of it. But right now, he needs to use his mouth with John in the way he’s wanted to for a long, long while.


End file.
